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Apocalypse Life/Issue 33
Issue 33 - Rental People The hall was empty, much to Julius’s relief. He has just left a hallway full of walkers a floor below him, and now he’s looking to get some kind, any kind of breather. But he wasn’t even winded yet; he’s still feeling too antsy after barely avoiding them. With the hall’s narrow space and amount of walkers, it would’ve been very easy for someone like him to get surrounded. He paces through the hallway, through its empty moon-lit tiled floor and windows. It was something to admire, but Julius is already low on time. As he continued to pace, barrel of the bat in hand, he thinks; Alice is on the opposite side of the bottom floor, probably bashing some heads in. There’s no way he’s going to go back downstairs, unless he has absolutely no choice. He’s thinking of maybe climbing out of a window again and carefully jumping down, possibly with injuries this time. At least the building isn’t that tall. The nostalgia he was feeling from the high school view in front of him kept him at ease; the tiled floors were surprisingly clean, and numerous school-related posters are still visibly in-tact. He can’t help but lean in against one of the lockers and just take a moment for himself, recollecting his high school days, back when life was “easy.” Yet he nags himself to keep going. This might not be the last time he sees a high school, its halls empty, rooms untouched, nobody around to run him out. He always used to think of how school would feel like without all its students, teachers. And with Alice around? It looks like he was going to have put a pin on it. And so he stops leaning from the lockers and resumes his walk, his direction towards the set of stairs to the other side. But before he gets slightly closer to it, he catches something in the corner of his eyes; some kind of bright light, rippled by the glass of… a door. To his left. His heart rapidly thumps for a few seconds once he sets his eyes on it. He approaches the door, and takes a peek inside the glass; but it was too blurred to have a clear image inside. And so he grips the cold metal knob, turns it, and pushes it open. The first thing he sees is a lit desk lamp standing above the teacher’s table, the one and only light source in the room. He squints as he approaches it, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. Just the busy-looking pile of papers, pens, some other knick knacks, and a paperweight. Like it was left there since the last school year. He circles the desk and crouches down to its level, looking left and right at the shelves. He sets his bat down and pulls the one to his right, then to his left. Just another gigantic stack of papers, this time separated by different-colored folders. Nothing worth taking. He bends down to grab his bat and scans the rest of the room, seeing the set of desks, numerous posters on the walls shrouded in bad lighting, and… a person, sitting on a desk chair on the far left corner. Julius’s heart flares as he tries his best to make out the person’s face, but it was much too shrouded in darkness. And so he walks past the desk, a bit hastily, toward it. The only thing visible was his or her bottom half, which were jeans and tennis shoes. “Hello…?” he says, hesitantly at first. The person’s feet move slightly. Julius’s grip on his bat tightens, out of precaution. He wants to believe he’s already several steps ahead of this person. “H-hey there…” it replies; his voice was extremely weak. Julius stops all movement upon hearing it. “I—I don’t want you to get closer… d-don’t know what could happen…” The way he sat inanimate, refusing to reveal himself, made Julius a little weary. “Can’t be that bad—” Julius replies; he gets nothing but sickly coughs in response. “I t-think it’d best if you… g-get out of here…” The person’s feet touch the ground, and he reveals his left hand; he wore something long-sleeved, and that’s all the significance Julius could catch. The person suddenly slides his desk chair toward Julius; the room’s lighting reveals the arm rests of the chair, then his chest, then his face. Nothing but a young kid, his face ashen even in this poor visibility, moisture shining on his cheeks. Julius does one good scan, and stops at his other hand; his wrist is hand-cuffed to the armrest. ---- Pleasantries were exchanged fairly quickly between Alice, and the girl she had just saved. Marina was her name. Alice assumed quickly that she was of middle-eastern decent, judging from her jet black hair, skin color, and her weak yet distinct accent, which reminded Alice of her aunt. Marina says the walkers just started to accumulate near the entrance, and it got out of hand when they were trying to deal with them. Her group, which consisted of three other people, was all forced out. Marina doesn’t exactly know who got out. “There were… two others, looks about your age. One was wearing a red jacket, the other green… the red jacket, she’s a girl… she—she was the one that told us about you.” Alice summarizes her part as they walked away from the cafeteria entrance and toward the open field stadium. “The other guy was making a big deal out of leaving. Held the girl tight by her arm and just tugged her away. I… I don’t know what that was about.” Alice looks to Marina for a response; she just assumes a slightly dejected look, her eyes to the direction of the ground. “They… they’re doing the right thing,” Marina responds, turning to look at Alice, then to the field. “That’s what we have to do if we get separated. We go on to survive… can’t risk our lives looking for each other.” Alice nods, and continues to look at her. “By the way… my… my boyfriend is still stuck in there.” Alice points to the direction of the cafeteria, which was out of view this time. “He was the one that insisted we save you.” Marina looks away in response, as if she was thinking of something. After seconds of silence, she points up. “We installed a few ladders in some of these windows, just… in case we needed a quick escape. I…” She stops pointing and rubs the fore-arm of her right hand. “I forget which windows, though…” She hastens her walking and looks up at the windows, forcing Alice to keep up. -------- “I was the only one that got bit. Everyone else managed to get out. I hope…” He mutters the last part weakly. “I tied myself here. I just… I couldn’t…” It was nothing but hopeless, in the eyes of Julius. Just his voice alone already showed how ill he looked. He wasn’t use to this sight. Used to the sight of people on the verge of turning. And this boy… he was just a kid. Maybe a few years younger than him, but still just a kid. His semi-long black hair got in the way of his eyes. His lips matched the color of his ashen skin. He could barely move his other arm. Julius looks left and right, a heavy feeling weighing down his chest. He does a quick scan behind him. “Do you… do you need help?” he asks. He was looking for a particular weapon. “I can… I can maybe…” The boy looks up to him and bobs his head to shake away the hair from his eyes. It wasn’t enough to reveal them, though. “What? N-no… no. Please. I don’t w-want to put you through that…” The weakness from his voice temporarily vanished. Julius pauses, looks at him, and nods. He has just met this person. It may have been easier that way. The discouraging fatigue he was showing made Julius want to sit. He pulls a desk from behind him as lightly as he can, turns it toward him, and sits. He pauses to look below his side, so he can set his bat down. He turns to look at the kid, who wasn’t looking any better. “You got a name?” he finally asks. The kid looks up to him again, but it barely made any difference. “H-Herbert,” he replies, this time even weaker. Julius nods. Herbert coughs, and his breathing grows louder. “Do you have anything you wanted to say Herbert? Anything you… want to leave with?” It was the best Julius could think of at this moment. Herbert remains silent, and turns his head a few times. “Probably…” He coughs. “… just… just that Leo, Cara, and Marina are the best friends I—I’ve ever had.” Those three names were somehow familiar to Julius. “They put up with me,” he continues. “All these r-rules I made… a—a system… but it kept us going… kept us living. I—I can’t ask for a better group than that.” His voice was starting to get lower, and weaker, by the second. “I guess t-that’s… that’s all…” His head was giving in to fatigue; he could barely hold it up. “Herbert…” Julius steps out of his desk and places his hand on Herbert’s shoulder. “H-hang in there.” His breathing was becoming louder and slower. “Y-you have to get out…” Herbert does his best to hold his head up. “O-one of the windows… l-ladder… op-open it up…” Before Julius can even respond, the door behind him busts open, revealing two walkers. “Dammit…” Julius mutters. His thoughts spiral into panic, and he snatches his bat and sprints toward the windows. He catches a glimpse of Herbert, completely motionless, his head down. Julius tightens the grip of his bat and starts pulling the windows up in a rush. He sees a metal ladder on the second window from the left; without hesitation, he pulls this particular window up the highest and quickly slips himself into the steps. He was worried Herbert was going to get consumed, but the walkers’ eyes were on him. He couldn’t dwell on it too much now, but he still can’t help weighing himself down. ---- The stairs at least stretched to a comfortable height, helping Julius land on the grass without trouble. He has just witnessed a boy younger than him succumb to infection. He wanted to take a break and piece it all together, but he had to worry about other things; first and foremost, if Alice was successful in getting out. He jogs through grass, past a tree, toward the direction of what he hopes is the cafeteria. He was just making up a plan of getting her out of there when he runs into them in the right turn he makes. There she was. Alice, unscathed, sledgehammer in hand. To her right, a girl with a blue hoodie. The initial objective he had in mind snaps back, and he remembers why he was there in the first place. “Julius!” Alice says in a near-yelp; she scurries toward him and hugs him tightly. “I’m okay, I’m okay,” Julius tells her, returning her hug and patting her back. After they pull away, Julius looks to the blue hoodie girl and walks toward her. “Maria, right?” he asks, with a pointing gesture. “I—I’m Julius.” The girl created a somewhat timid aura around her with her look and the stuffed hands on her pockets. “Y-yeah,” she nods in response. “M-Marina.” Julius hears the correction and nods, feeling slightly embarrassed. But her subsequent “Thank you” calms him down a bit. “T-thank you to… to uh, to both of you.” Julius and Alice look at each other. “Nah,” Julius replies, pointing at Alice. “She deserves all the thanks. She’s the one that found you.” Alice smirks proudly for a second before responding. “Wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for her.” Alice walks closer to Julius’s side, her eyes on Marina. “I got surrounded when we were about to leave. She shot a few of them down and pulled me out.” Marina was fully aware of her deed but she tries to look away anyway. “Oh,” Julius responds. “That’s… that’s great.” He really doesn’t want to think further into it; he just knew Alice was going to make it out, rescue or not. But if it probably wasn’t for her… “Thank you, thank you so much,” Julius tells her. “I…” He leans in close. “I really love that girl.” Alice looks on to both of them with her brows slightly leveled down. Marina does a half-smirk, and nods. “Alice…” Julius turns and walks toward her, distancing away from Marina a bit. “I don’t… think she has any place to go. I mean she just got displaced from her group…” Alice folds her arms and looks at Marina again, who was looking away as if there were things in her mind. “Yeah. I know. She’s… she could’ve left me there, survived on her own, but no. Even had the courtesy to pull me out.” Julius nods. It was settled. He tears away from Alice a bit and approaches Marina. “You… you have anywhere to go? After this?” he asks, politely. A distracted Marina turns to look at him. “Um… n-no. I was just—” She points and glances behind her. “I—I was just gonna… go, if y-you guys don’t… don’t need to…” Alice walking to Julius’s side made her a little nervous. “No. No… don’t. It’s—I know how it is out there. I think it’d be better if you come with us.” A smirk grows on Alice’s face as Marina’s expression lightens up. She hesitantly continues to shuffle her words until she finally comes up with an answer. “Um… uh… s-sure.” She wanted it to be an exuberant “Yes”, but she just met these people. “Great.” Both Julius and Alice smile at her response. “We should probably… go.” They look at each other, then to Marina, and continue to walk. Marina lets them pass, creating a short distance before she can follow. She was feeling jittery inside. Who were these people? Why are they so nice? Shouldn’t they have suspicions of her being a bandit? Are they cannibals? Questions buzz through her head the first few seconds until she sees how attached they are to each other. Somehow, it made her feel at ease. ---- It was still dark out, but more clouds have made the sky look a little brighter. They didn’t have a particular direction to go, since Alice had no idea how to get back, and Julius thought the path was too perilous. After a bit of aimless wandering, Julius chose a house nearly shrouded in darkness as a place to stay. Alice does the honor of breaking the front door down with her trusty sledgehammer; all she had to do was slam the knob off and they could enter in no time. Julius takes the lead, doing a quick scan of the room; it looked normal, for the most part, mostly because his sight was so limited. All he could see were two sets of comforters and a rectangular coffee table. “Yeah this’ll do,” he says to both of them, and he steps aside to make way. Alice sits on the sofa nearest to her, followed by Julius, who sits next to her, and then Marina, who sits on the other comforter. They all sit in the darkness, trying to look at their surroundings, getting their sights accustomed to the lighting. The opened door provided the limited light. Alice does a quick turn-around and feels her hands brush off a set of blinds. She quickly tries to reach for the tilting stick and turns it, opening the blinds up and providing a little extra light. She sits back, and looks at Julius. “So…” he says, elbows on his lap. “What are we… going to do after this?” He hasn’t had this talk with Alice yet since they were going to do something that escapes him right now. So the silence looms for a few more moments. “Um…” Marina chimes in, her movement making her a little easier to spot. “I… I was gonna go along with my back-up plan, but… I don’t know if you guys are willing to… go with me…” She stops and looks at both of them. “Let’s hear it then,” Julius replies. “Alright, well… we’ve been scouting this… one group always scavenging on the same spot. I know they’re the same people because I’ve seen them about three times, same clothes and all. W-we tracked them down one time, led to this one rental building… now I’m assuming there’s more people in there, so… i-if big groups aren’t your thing…” Julius and Alice look at each other, with Julius wanting to stay quiet. And she did too, apparently. “Okay,” Julius adds. “I think both of us do just fine. So if…” He turns to look at Marina. “… if you’re with us, I think you’ll be fine. W-we don’t have to risk making contact with this group—” “Both of us?” Alice interrupts. “I mean, give or take a few days I think we’ll get the hang of it but… right now? We haven’t even looked for food yet. And, just the thought of bigger numbers… and, we’re gonna end up on a group anyway. Probably not now, not for a week. Maybe we can…” She briefly points at Marina. “… give her idea a try. See if it works out for us.” Julius was quick to agree. Alice was always so convincing. “Alright then. Sounds pretty good. We can… maybe scout them out first, see if they’re hostile. And as for food…” He reaches for the back of his head and slowly scratches it. “Dammit…” “Food?” Marina replies. It looks like she knows how she’s going to pay them back. “I know a place.” This catches both of their attention, as they turn to look at her. ---- The sun was barely up in the sky, but it was enough to see the streets clearly. Two men stand in between walkers in the middle of the street. One of them, a tall, dark-skinned man wearing glasses and no head of hair, swings a fire axe at every walker he makes contact with. He was feeling confident; he was able to keep swinging his axe in a way that it did enough damage to take down the walkers. He’s had tons of practice, after all. But he had to jinx it. His axe gets stuck on the fifth walker, and he immediately delves into a bit of panic yanking it out. It was just a short window of time, though; out of dissatisfaction, he pushes the walker away with his foot and causes it to bowl through a few other walkers, giving him a bit of space. At least something good came out of it. The other man, standing behind him, looked more relaxed, confident than him. His right hand was dug into the inner pocket of his suit, looking at each walker to his side; a quick head count. His mouth murmured numbers as his eyes traveled across the heads of walkers. “You doin’ good there, Xavier?” he calls, from behind him. The man with the axe glances at him, sweat dripping from his bald head. “Yeah—” he replies, in a somewhat winded manner; he was moving way more than this guy, after all. The suited man pulls his right hand out, revealing a pistol with a silencer attached to it. He holds it up for a few seconds before aiming at the oncoming walkers. There were seven of them; two he can probably kill with one bullet judging from the way they stood. He starts from the right direction, shooting the walker’s head down with ease and creating a smooth punching sound with his pistol; the man with axe, Xavier, calms down a bit at the sound of it. The suited man moves on to the next target, taking at least a second to take it down, then moves in to the next one in quick succession, and the rest after that. In the span of three seconds, and a bit of disappointment for not taking two birds with one stone, he was finished. One bullet for each head. He felt a familiar pride boost at the sight of it and turns toward his partner. He pats Xavier’s back and aims his pistol toward his walkers, taking at least three of them down fairly quickly. His partner pauses in admiration before getting ready to swing at the next walker. “All yours pal,” the suited man tells him, seeing his pistol empty. Xavier braces for a second then does the swing that ends their killing spree on the lone walker approaching him. He yanks the blade out, and the walker falls to its back. He takes a few deep breaths, wiping the sweat on his forehead with his sleeve. This might be the biggest amount of walkers they’ve encountered today. Then again, he doesn’t want to jinx it. Again. “Toni,” he calls, referring to the suited man, who was busy looking at the clip on one hand and the pistol on the other. “Do you always have to wait to kill ‘em all? Can’t you just… just do it?” The man named Toni turns to look at him, wearing a smug expression. “Always gotta count how many I gotta shoot,” he replies, in a true racketeer fashion. It complimented his overall appearance very well. “Makes my head clearer if I know.” He taps his temple upon saying it. Xavier shakes his head, and swings his weapon on his shoulders, looking at their most recent achievement. At least twelve walkers, maybe more, all down. It was something to be proud of, even only for a moment. “We should go get Lina, make this search a little bit easier.” Toni was in the middle of placing his pistol back inside of his suit. “Maybe we’ll get this done quicker if we stick t’gether.” Xavier was fully aware that they were meager in numbers. He feels there will be less work if more people cover different areas. But they couldn’t; there are only three of them. His companion turns to look at him, then toward the direction of the convenience store they just came from. Their thorough search and subsequent empty-handedness is what caused them to get surrounded in the first place. To think, they risked staying there, with walkers roaming around, only to find nothing. He nods, puts his bloodied fire axe down. “Yeah, we should.” ---- Category:Apocalypse Life Category:Apocalypse Life Issues Category:Issues Category:KnowledgeProspector Stories